Large Collection of "Shanah Tovah" Postcards and Greetings Cards – The Unites States and Elsewhere. Late 19th ...

Large Collection of "Shanah Tovah" Postcards and Greetings Cards – The Unites States and Elsewhere. Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century – Immigration to the United States

Some 100 "shanah tovah" greeting cards and postcards. USA and elsewhere. Late 19th century and first decades of the 20th Century.
Most of the cards in the collection were printed in the USA; some were printed in Poland and other places, and focus on immigration to the USA.
In the collection:
• Dozens of decorated personal cards, in small format.
• "LeShanah Tovah Shiffskarte" postcards and other postcards depicting various stages of the yearned-for immigration to the USA.
• Two large, folding greeting cards, decorated with the American flag. One card features the portrait of the Vilna Gaon, the other a portrait of R. Jonathan Eybeschutz.
• Postcards published by the Jewish Welfare Board, a welfare organization for Jewish soldiers in the American military; founded in 1917.
• Early commercial postcards by "B. Manischewitz Co.", "The Sunshine Bakers" and various hotels, as well as postcards depicting different buildings and monuments; including a postcard published on the occasion of the World's Fair in St. Louis, 1904.
Size and condition vary.
Provenance: The Dr. Haim Grossman collection.

Dr. Chaim Grossman's Israeliana collection is exceptional in size, quality and variety. Grossman, an educator, historian and folklorist, was a methodical, knowledgeable and meticulous collector, and his deep understanding of Palestinian-Yishuv and Israeli material culture set the ground for a one-of-a-kind collection of mundane and less than mundane objects – from the ephemeral, the negligible, the widely available to the rare and singular.
The "shana tovah" collection left by Grossman – a considerable part of which is offered in the present auction – comprises thousands of postcards, cards, letters and other paper items made and sent year after year in, by and for Jewish communities: in Eastern and Western Europe, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, North Africa, North and South America, as part of the tradition of sending hand-written, hand-drawn or printed new year’s greetings, which originated in German Jewry but with the rise of postcards spread to most communities. The earliest items in the collection date to the 1860s; the latest were made in the late 20th century. It includes both beautifully designed, rare, early and singular postcards and cards, and mass-made, highly popular items sold in large quantities, in varying production quality and in dozens of repeating versions, each according to the technical abilities achieved by the local publication industry.
The collector's devotion to his collection is evident in the sheer number of items, in the wealth of techniques, visuals and themes, and in the thorough, intersectional categorization by period, origin, motif, technique and material. Glitter and relief embossing, scraps, lace and golden ink, lithography and celluloid transparencies, plastic, textile and metal decorations; Yiddish, Hebrew, English, Russian, French, Polish, German greetings; children, angels, families, pets, immigrants, travelers, professionals; portraits and tinted reproductions; Judaism, Zionism, the state, the army; the ritual and the mundane; any new year's greeting, in any form whatsoever, had a place in Grossman's collection and was honored as a historical testimony, as a timeless, invaluable treasure.